That's A Horse of A Different Color

First, I'd like to introduce you to the laziest horse in New England.

This is Dewey.  It was so tiring eating all that hay at 9:30am, he had to lay down to do it.  For like a half hour!  Dewey bites, so I don't really like Dewey.  And now I know he's lazy, so one more strike against him.


The other day, I mentioned that I've been riding Jake.  After all this time with Tucker, there is a lot that's different about Jake.  For example, his size.

Jake is only about a hand shorter than Tucker, but I have never seen over Tucker's back!  I can see right over Jake's and I can look right at his spine.  I don't even know if Tucker has a spine.

Everything is just a little smaller.  Smaller head, smaller feet, smaller belly- well, maybe not.

And he's a very different color.  Tucker is bay which to me means different shades of dark brown.  Jake is chestnut which is lighter but in the sun, he's coppery like a penny.  He's really pretty when he's all cleaned up.  He's also a quarter horse where Tucker is a Thoroughbred.

He's also got a very different gait and the ride is so different that the first time, it was like I'd never ridden a horse before.  He has a self propelling engine that takes nothing to get him going, and I couldn't make him stop for anything the first time.  He's much more sensitive to my leg than Tucker, so I cantered from almost a standstill the second time I rode him which was a surprise to all of us.  He understand my signals better than Tucker, so I can focus more on what I'm supposed to be doing instead of wondering why he isn't listening to me.

He's also just that much closer to the ground that if I fell off, it might not seem soooooo far down.

Cantering has been many a subject I've blogged about because it's the one gait that scares me and thrills me at makes me crazy all at once. Where Tucker's canter is like booooiiinngg, booooiiinngg, booooiiinngg, Jake's is boing, boing, boing and it feels ridiculous.  Shorter legs mean a shorter stride and self propelling means little work to get him moving so a lot of my cantering with Jake has been racing around.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm riding a dog who's after a rolling ball!

He also has this very scary habit of leaning in when he's cantering on a circle which scares the pants off of me because I am certain we will just fall right over.  Tucker does not do that.  Instead, Tucker doesn't like the way I ask him to canter, so he bucks and kicks and refuses and then stops at the slightest indication that I might be thinking about stopping.

It's fascinating to learn the way another horse operates, especially after only ever riding one other horse.  I have no idea how long I will ride Jake before going back to Tucker but I like some of the differences I've noticed between them.  I certainly don't work as hard to get Jake to work as I do with Tucker.  I leave feeling like I exercised but not like I've run a marathon, the way I sometimes feel after I ride Tucker!